On this day, Feb. 13, in 1946, black U.S. Army veteran Isaac Woodard Jr. was permanently blinded by a police beating in South Carolina, an attack that ultimately led to the integration of the military.

World War II veteran Isaac Woodard Jr. was blinded by South Carolina police while returning home from military service.

Woodard, a decorated sergeant in World War II, had been honorably discharged from the Army just 10 hours earlier. At the time, black and white soldiers were not allowed to serve together.

Woodard hopped on a bus from Camp Gordon in Georgia home to his family in North Carolina.

Woodard, 27, was still in uniform on his way home when he got into a verbal dispute with a bus driver. The bus stopped in Batesburg, S.C., where Woodard was confronted by police. He was taken to a nearby alley, where the officers beat him repeatedly with nightsticks.

Woodard was then taken to the town jail, where he was beaten so severely that he lost sight in both eyes. He was blind for life.

The case wasn’t publicized at first, but it eventually made its way into the major newspapers around the country.